Wrong Roads
"Wrong Roads" is the ninth episode of the fifth season, and the 61st episode in the series overall. It was written by Dave Andron and Leonard Chang and directed by Michael Dinner. It first aired on March 11, 2014. Plot Summary Raylan partners with a maverick DEA agent whose bad behavior feels uncomfortably familiar, while Boyd makes a hard choice to protect Ava. Recap Somewhere in Texas near the Mexican border, Carl, Dewey and Danny, in wreckers with vehicles on the hook, meet up with the drugs shipment in a refrigerated truck of fish. The 49 packets of heroin are removed and secreted under the front bumpers of the cars on tow. They set off for Kentucky, the Crowe cousins in one truck, Carl, who refuses to have Dewey as a passenger because of his body odor, in the other. Carl phones Boyd and Daryl to tell them their shipment is on its way. Daryl and Boyd have a heart-to-heart, as Daryl tries to flatter Boyd, and Boyd tells Daryl that he has figured out that the Crowes shot down Dunham's men in the desert without provocation, not in self-defense. He also tells him that he's aware that Daryl had the importation plan set up with Flores in advance. Daryl admits it, and compliments Boyd on how sharp an operator he is. Drinking alone in a bar in the afternoon trying to figure out where it went wrong with Alison, Raylan is picked up by Kayla, a $1,000-a-day hooker who "for you," offers a cut rate of $500 to accompany him to Florida. Later, Raylan leaves the bar alone, in the rain, gets in his car and books a flight to Miami. He looks at a folder containing law enforcement reports and photos of the bodies of Johnny Crowder and Hot Rod Dunham's men from their demise in the Mexican desert. In the Memphis office of the DEA, Raylan, hoping to get a line on Dunham, meets with Agent Henkins who points him to DEA Agent Miller, who's practicing his shooting skills in the basement range, nipping at a flask between reloads. After introductions are made, Miller decides that he should accompany Raylan in his search for Dunham. Boyd visits Ava in prison where he asks after her and pays her compliments. Ava is all business though, and tells Boyd that he will be contacted by her friend, and he is to help her and do whatever favor she asks of him. She cuts the visit short, and returns to her cell. Wendy visits Kendal pouring drinks at Audrey's. Enter Daryl, to tell his sister that all went well and that they will all soon be rich. Wynn Duffy sips coffee while he takes a call from Boyd as Picker sits across from him in a hotel room. He and Picker must head down to Harlan to meet with Boyd and Daryl. Raylan and the two DEA agents enter Dunham's warehouse and find brothers Jay and Roscoe. The former greets Miller by name. They leave the two men in Henkins' custody while they head off to investigate another property of Dunham's. Prison nurse Rowena enters Johnny's bar looking for Boyd, but bartender Caleb plays dumb 'til Boyd emerges from the rear to take the meeting Ava had (sorta) prepped him for. Her demand for her part in the smuggling operation? Boyd helps Rowena "get me my retribution" against a man who murdered her prison partner Vernon by burning her house down with her in it. Back in the warehouse, Henkins keeps watch over the handcuffed brothers who are annoying him with their smack talk. In retaliation, he tells them that half of Dunham's crew were found dead in the back of a truck with traces of heroin in it, in Mexico. The surprised brothers quickly assess their situation, rise and advance toward an uncertain Henkins who has drawn his pistol. While the agent vacillates, Roscoe gets close enough to skull butt him to the floor, unconscious. "Get his keys," Rosco says. Stringing Henkins up by his manacles, Roscoe calls the location where Dunham is bound in captivity, and tells his captor Ali that "Boyd Crowder hit back. You tell Hot Rod he give us where Boyd at, maybe he lives." Ali approaches Dunham and puts the slug on him, demanding he give up Boyd's location. He agrees in order to be spared a further beating, and asks for a pencil to draw a map to Boyd's place in Harlan. Miller and Raylan pull up outside Dunham's auto-towing business and as they exit their vehicle, hear a single shot. Entering the premises, guns at the ready, they find Ali, his own gun in hand, clutching at his throat. They order him to drop his weapon and he does as his falls to the floor. He is rapidly bleeding to death from a pencil driven deep into his neck, and dies silently. Miller finds Dunham gutshot on the floor and rushes to his side. "Just like you to show up two minutes late," he tells the DEA agent. He recognizes Raylan as well. The Deputy U.S. Marshal explains his presence, telling the old drug lord, "Johnny Crowder and three of your boys turned up dead in Mexico." Dunham, even in extreme pain, grasps the situation. "At the hands of Boyd no doubt. Damn Crowders!" He is interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing, then asks "Miller, you got the flask?" as Raylan calls for an ambulance. Miller and Dunham reminisce a bit as the man takes a final pull on Miller's flask, and dies as sirens sound in the distance. "Aw, hell!" Miller says as he retrieves his flask and recaps it. Boyd visits Elmont Swain in a nursing home. He sizes up Boyd and, drawing a revolver from beneath his pillow, says, "She sent you here, didn't she?" Boyd closes the door behind him and sits down with the old man. In colloquy, Boyd learns that Swain's daughter, incarcerated on a bad check charge, died as a result of some heroin smuggled into prison by Vernon, Swain's reason for killing the woman. Boyd says he'd have done the same thing to anyone who'd killed his woman. Swain tells him he'd better go, but Boyd says he can't, and offers to arrange for the dying man — Swain says he has a "bad heart, bad liver" — to leave the facility and "live out your days like a king." Swain is interested. As the coroner's people remove the bodies from Dunham's garage, Miller tells Raylan that Henkins, suffering from a concussion, has been rescued from the abandoned warehouse, and that Dunham had been his confidential informant for 15 years, giving him tips on his competition. They then set off to find Boyd. Boyd is on his cellphone with Carl who informs him he's "two hours away" but that he's lost the other tow truck with Danny and Dewey who aren't answering their own phones. Boyd tells him to keep trying, and that he has important business to do for Ava. Dewey and an increasingly impatient Danny are pulled over on the side of a road, lost, as Dewey wrestles with technology in the form of a cellphone with no signal and a malfunctioning GPS device. Danny threatens his cousin physically, and endlessly abuses him verbally. Caleb is reading a newspaper alone at Johnny's bar when Jay and Roscoe enter, looking for Boyd. Caleb hangs tough 'til Jay sticks his pistol into Caleb's mouth. In their prison dormitory, Ava is confronted by an angry and strung out Lara who blames Ava for the interruption of their heroin supply. Ava tries to explain to her that "it's coming," but the woman is obdurate 'til Judith steps in and takes a stronger approach. Lara pockets her prison shiv and backs down. Raylan and Miller enter a deserted Johnny's bar where the DEA agent refills his flask from the bottle of Maker's Mark left on the bar. They discover Caleb bound and gagged with duct tape on the floor behind the bar. He sends them after Jay and Roscoe who'd followed Boyd to Audrey's. There's a big sit-down around a table at Audrey's between Boyd, Daryl, Wynn and Picker where terms and percentages are discussed. Daryl wants 20%, while Picker and Wynn counter with 10%. Outside, Jay approaches the meeting place where Jimmy and Wynn's omnipresent bodyguard Mike are standing guard. They bar Jay from entering, but the distraction allows Roscoe, guns drawn, to come up on their right flank and take control of the scene. Jimmy and Mike are marched in at gun point to disrupt the meeting as Jay gets the drop on everyone and offers his terms: the money or the drugs. He then allows the men at the table to choose which. Boyd's silver tongue springs into action and he starts to explain an alternative view of what might transpire next when Raylan and Miller enter with the drop on everyone. Ordering the brothers to drop their weapons, they decline and Roscoe, citing Shakespeare's "King Lear," starts a lengthy rap the upshot of which is that they just want what they feel is their well-deserved piece of the action. Miller again commands him to drop his gun and gives him "three seconds" to comply. Roscoe keeps talking and a fast three seconds later, Miller drops the man with a single shot as Jay yells "NOOOOOOOOO!" With both Miller and Raylan commanding him to disarm, and Duffy, Picker, Boyd, and Daryl watching intently, a distraught Jay takes several long and tense seconds before finally complying. With the authorities taking Jay into custody, Miller and Raylan have a brief discussion. Raylan says he has to go back to Lexington to "finish up some things". He leaves, as Miller watches him go, pulling from his flask. Boyd and Jimmy take Elmont Swain for a ride in his pick-up truck where, when Boyd, giving Swain assurances, stops and exits, pretending to relieve himself, Jimmy garrotes the old man. Boyd calls Rowena to tell her "It's done." In the trailer behind Johnny's bar, Kendal and Wendy are playing double solitaire when Daryl, out on bail, enters. He opens a bureau drawer looking for another deck of cards to join them. When Kendal tries to stop him, Daryl persists and finds the envelope with the almost $2,000 "Caller #7" money that Raylan had given him. Kendal tells him it's money he "stole from the johns", but Daryl declares he's keeping it for himself. The lad leaves in disgust as Daryl has a discussion with his sister, telling her he can't understand why she wants to leave now that the Crowes are on the cusp of taking over "the entire heroin business" in Kentucky, and all that he has to do is kill three more people! Wendy's not happy. Ava enters the prison infirmary to get her scheduled Hepatitis B shot from Rowena, who tells her that Boyd has acquitted himself admirably on her behalf. Then she switches up and says there's one further condition: Ava has to kill Judith. Raylan walks into Marshals' HQ late that evening just as Art is leaving. They have a confrontation that leaves both men unsatisfied. Miller is driving alone on the highway that night listening to country music when he spots a wrecker towing a car headed the other way. He spins around, overtakes the tow truck and pulls it over. He orders the Crowe cousins out of the truck but only Danny exits, sheath knife in hand. There is brief discussion while Danny refuses to comply, and the two men are about to test the "21-foot rule" when Dewey, who has surreptitiously slid behind the wheel, steps on the gas, clips Danny and as the DEA agent puts three rounds of .357 Magnum into the driver's windshield, runs down Miller before hightailing it down the road. A bloody, banged up Danny draws himself erect and watches the tow truck disappear into the night. ''- Created by Dean Speir for IMDb'' Appearances First Appearances #Alex Miller - An alcoholic DEA agent who Raylan Givens partners with during his investigation of Rodney Dunham. Miller's mannerisms seem to be strikingly similar to that of Raylan. #Henkins - A DEA agent who accompanies Raylan and Miller to Dunham's compound, where he is forced to watch Roscoe and Jay so that they don't tip Dunham off. He is knocked unconscious and chained by the two brothers when they overpower him. #Elmont Swain - See below. Deaths *Ali - Stabbed in the neck with a pencil by Rodney Dunham. *Rodney Dunham - Shot in the stomach by Ali. *Elmont Swain - The husband of Elania Swain who was responsible for burning Rowena's drug partner, Vernon, alive after Elania died of a drug overdose in prison. Garroted with a wire by Jimmy Tolan. Production Cast Starring cast *Timothy Olyphant as Raylan Givens *Nick Searcy as Art Mullen *Jere Burns as Wynn Duffy *Joelle Carter as Ava Crowder *Jacob Pitts as Tim Gutterson (credit only) *Erica Tazel as Rachel Brooks (credit only) *Walton Goggins as Boyd Crowder Guest stars *Michael Rapaport as Daryl Crowe Jr. *A.J. Buckley as Danny Crowe *Dale Dickey as Judith *Joshua Harto as Henkins *Steve Harris as Roscoe *Wood Harris as Jay *Deidrie Henry as Rowena *Damon Herriman as Dewey Crowe *Mickey Jones as Rodney Dunham *John Kapelos as Ethan Picker *Jesse Luken as Jimmy Tolan *Jacob Lofland as Kendal Crowe *Eric Roberts as Alex Miller *Alicia Witt as Wendy Crowe *Muse Watson as Elmont Swain *Justin Welborn as Carl Lennon Co-stars *Jonathan Kowalsky as Mike Cosmatopolis *James Logan as Caleb *Jolene Andersen as Lara *Angie Simms as Kayla *Reggie Watkins as Ali Uncredited *Casey McCarthy as Gretchen Swift Gallery S2.jpg External Links Category:Season 5 episodes